Hacker News Reader

Comment by alistairSH | Hacker News Reader

It's not corruption, unless you consider the whole wage system for restaurant staff in the US to be corrupt. And as tips are paid at the end of service, the waiter doesn't know if you'll tip well or not while serving you.

Today, tips are paid because wait staff are paid below minimum wage. This is legal - as tipping is baked into their compensation. It's stupid and anachronistic, but it's not the fault of the staff (though GOOD waiters will often express support for the system because they fear going to fixed wage w/ zero tipping will reduce their income).

I'd much prefer a living wage with optional tips for extraordinary service (which seems to be the norm in much of western Europe). Here in the US, 20% gratuity is pretty much expected. And FWIW, I'll pay 25-30% for good service, and to get less than 20%, a waiter would have to be downright awful.

View on HN

And as tips are paid at the end of service, the waiter doesn't know if you'll tip well or not while serving you.

At bars on the other hand the 'corruption' is much clearer. Tip badly for a round of drinks and you'll get slow/bad service for the rest of the evening. Tip well and you'll get priority service and perhaps even free booze. Especially with spirits and mixed drinks the corruption is obvious. Tip well and the bartender will pour you a double while charging you for a single, essentially 'stealing' from his employer and selling you the stolen goods at a discount under the table.

If you're going to pay by credit anyway, you can usually open a tab when you start, and then pay all at once at the end. That's how I've always done it, maybe it's regional?

I've only seen that in local places. Otherwise its too easy to just leave from bigger venues without paying.

The non-local places around the USA will take your card when starting a tab and many automatically add gratuity if you walk out without closing it (unsure if they place credit holds based on each order). At venues like concert arenas you may not see this, but I always suspected it was more due to the logistical challenge arising from people all wanting to leave at the same time.

*At a discount relative to the insane markup spirits have at a typical bar.

It's not totally implausible that the owner is fully aware of the situation and accepts the status quo as a local maximum of profitability, why mess with standing social norms -- much how most restauraunteurs in the states wouldn't dream of paying a living wage for their wait staff because they know customers are going to tip sufficiently regardless of wages and that enough potential employees are fine with the situation (or prefer it) that they won't have staffing issues.

I took a cruise with a large group of friends once. We all had the drink package and prepaid gratuities, but we tipped extra for all of our drinks at the two bars that were our favorites. For only an extra $0.50/drink, I was getting 2-3x the alcohol and the wait staff would ignore other patrons to go straight to us. It made me feel kind of bad, but the service was outstanding and I knew the money was going to a good cause since many of the workers on these cruise ships send money back home to family.

TLDR: It’s remarkable what tipping and basic human decency can do to the quality of service you receive at a bar.

It’s remarkable what tipping and basic human decency can do

Of course we now need an experiment to disentangle those two variables! One team tips very well, but treats the staff badly , one team treats the staff with plenty of human decency, but doesn't tip. Then we measure the quality of service received by the two groups. I wonder if I can apply for a research grant?

You’re using the technical definition to claim tips as not corruption. And of course we all know that, otherwise it would have been illegal.

The point is, fundamentally the current way tips are collected in the US is like corruption. And like corruption, it should be made illegal.

For those who think people can’t survive without tips, first it is a problem that they are mistreated by their employer, second make it legally binding to mandatory add 20% or whatever to the meal and pass that to the directly (again legally binding).

If you think tips encourage good quality of service, other places without a culture of giving tips have our ways of providing good quality of service. You don’t need tip for that.

I once heard tips people gave, that when checking into hotel rooms, you should hold a 20 dollar notes as hint of tip and then ask them for upgrade. If they do, then you give them the tip. This is bribery, one of the many examples how tip culture can be used in a way indistinguishable to corruption.

Depends on the state, In California they can’t be be paid below minimum wage.

Good point - most states require the pay to be the greater of 1) normal minimum wage OR 2) wait-specific min wage + tips/hour.

So, a waiter should always earn at least minimum wage, but can earn more if tips are good.

However, in practice, there are problems with this system. First, waiters who don't earn lots of tips usually get the bad shifts, then fired. Second, lots of room for wage theft.

And there is a whole bunch of wage theft - you can't forget that wage theft accounts for the most damaging crime by pure value in the US alone. Individual occurrences aren't generally for tons of money, but it happens everywhere.

In no state can a tipped employee be paid below minimum wage. If their base wage plus tips received over hours worked are below the minimum, then the employer is obligated to make up the difference. Of course, not everyone knows this, and I'm sure there are a lot of employers taking advantage of the situation.

The difference is in some states, there's not a different minimum base for tipped employees. So you're always making at least real min wage on your check automatically without having to worry about your boss actually doing the true up like they're supposed to.

Even if you know it, what are you going to do? Likely you can't afford a lawyer, and you definitely can't afford to leave your job to sue, since so many benefits in the US are tied to being employed. Employers know this...

Get another job and then sue before leaving your current one?

Presumably they can be fired if they routinely make below minimum wage in tips though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com